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and grabbed her arm. Someone else yelled and another animal reared so close that Roca felt its motion like a wind.
    “ No! ” Roca fought to pull away from the Bard. She stumbled against the animal and its hair scraped her face, far less soft than it looked, its musky scent filling her senses. She lost her balance when the animal stamped its feet, but before she could fall beneath its hooves, the Bard dragged her up its side. With a great heave, he hefted her up so she was sitting on the animal in front of him.
    “Stop it!” Roca yelled. As she struggled, she started to slide off, unable to adapt fast enough to the unfamiliar gravity. Even knowing how far it was to the ground, with so many other animals pounding the reeds around them, she kept fighting. No one touched her this way.
    The Bard caught her before she fell, but as he grabbed her waist, his agitated mount reared again. Roca froze as their height above the ground more than doubled. The animal trumpeted its call to the sky, and another animal answered, then another. As the Bard’s mount came down, he gave a shout of triumph. Leaning forward with his arms around Roca, he spurred the animal into a run.
    With that, the entire party took off, thundering across the plains—taking Roca with them.

3
The Broken Path
    T he plains went by in a blur. Roca jabbed her elbow into the ribs of the man behind her. When he grunted, she kicked her heel into his leg, then raked her fingernails up his arm. She didn’t need to understand his vehement words to know he was cursing.
    “Ai! Stop!” He finally spoke in English, shouting above the drumming hooves of the animals. “Don’t do that.” His mount had a remarkably smooth gait, much more so than a horse, enough to let him speak despite their fast pace.
    “Take me to port!” She whacked his leg hard.
    “Ow! Stop!”
    “Back to port!”
    “We cannot.” He leaned closer so he could speak near her ear instead of shouting. “Garlin says I must learn to understand you port people better. I didn’t want to, but I changed my mind. You must teach me about your people.”
    “Pah. You are rude boy. I make no diplomacy for you.”
    His hold shifted into an embrace. “But you have such wonderful passion.”
    She pushed off his arms as if they were a plague, making him lose his grasp on the reins. “Not for you.”
    “Hey!” He flailed for the reins. “I need those.”
    “I rather fall.”
    As he struggled to regain control of his animal, an unexpected sight startled her. His hands. He had no thumbs. His four fingers were about the same length, longer than hers and unusually thick. A hinge ran down his hand, starting between the second and third fingers and going all the way to his wrist. To hold the reins, he hinged his hand, folding his palm so his first and second fingers opposed the fourth and third, respectively. It worked with such efficiency, she thought the structure must have been engineered.
    Roca peered at the other riders. Those she could see well had hands like the Bard. They all had violet eyes, too, and gold, platinum, or burgundy hair. It was odd. The people of the Ruby Empire had been dark-haired and dark-eyed, as were many modern Skolians, especially the nobility. It helped Roca hide her identity; her gold coloring didn’t fit the imperial ideal. But the reflective skin, hair, and eyes she had inherited from her father served a purpose similar to the darker coloring of her mother’s people; it protected against bright sunlight. Perhaps the settlers here had decreased their pigmentation because their world received less light. The human eye could adapt to a wide range of intensities, so the streaming golden sunshine didn’t seem dim, but the amount was probably below the human norm.
    None of that made this situation less alarming. “Bard,” she said. “You break law. Take me back.”
    “Your English is hard to understand.”
    She snorted. “You understand fine.”
    Another rider pulled alongside